A Bridge of Wits and Betrayal

Fear ran through his veins like a chilling venom. Nicolas could feel the toxin taking over his entire body as he staggered and crashed into the moist foliage of the woodland. Every step he took reverberated across the carpet of rotting leaves like a ragged scream, yet it was insufficient to block out the constant, mechanical hum that followed him. He was being ground into dust by the sound, which sounded like a rusted gear of civilization grinding into the core of nature. Every ragged breath was like a thousand needles piercing his lungs, burning him from the inside out. The pressure of an impending deadline or the stinging annoyance of a source abandoning him had been his most agonizing experiences as a journalist. This was not like the others. This was the animalistic, primordial fear of being at the bottom of the food chain.

He lost the drive to keep moving ahead as his legs' remaining strength finally failed. He lost his balance on a slippery, moss-covered rock and fell, his face slamming into the damp, chilly embrace of mud and dirt. For a brief instant, he had the odd solace of surrender. But when he turned and saw the horror of wood and metal exploding through the trees, that feeling vanished into chilly resignation. With its lone red-glowing lens fixed on the defenseless victim on the ground, the machine had raised one of its scythe-like arms. Time slowed to the consistency of syrup and seemed to thicken.

And in that moment, a flicker that went beyond fear and reason ignited deep inside his head. An echo. An omen. He watched as the right arm of the machine descended on the precise location where his head would be in a second. This was not a planned tactic; rather, it was the last, frantic cry of a body struggling to live when the mind had already given up. He flung himself sideways with all the strength he had left. The directive was met with protests from every painful muscle and fiber in his body, yet he still moved. Just where his head had been, the scythe's metal tip sunk into the ground like a guillotine. As he became aware that he had narrowly avoided death, a spray of mud and broken roots slapped across his face.

He felt a jolt from that brief respite. It changed the panic's emphasis but did not eliminate it. The only outcome of a blind escape would be the fate he had just barely escaped. It wasn't enough to run. Then he saw something when he was resting in the mud. It took a full, grinding second for the machine to rip its arm free from its embedding in the ground. A brief lag. This was not flawless.

Just that one notion was sufficient. He got up and started running again, but this time he wasn't just running, he was watching. His gaze searched the wilderness as intently as a reporter would examine a murder scene. His thoughts were illuminated by Hector's voice: "The southern bridge." He started to pursue that light.

Intentionally forcing his body through a small opening between two enormous, old trees, he dove into a denser area of the forest. He paused for a second when he heard a loud crash behind him, followed by the high-pitched shriek of scraping metal. He glanced back at the machine's heavy chassis stuck in the tight space, its metal limbs carving deep cuts into the tree bark. As if in a rage, its red lens appeared to flicker. Eventually, with a powerful shudder, it ripped itself free, but it had lost at least five valuable seconds in the process. Nicolas recorded the first entry in the mental notepad he was currently creating: 1. Ungainly and awkward. Its capacity to maneuver in confined locations is severely hampered.

Encouraged by this minor finding, he continued. He stopped before jumping across a tiny creek that crossed his course. His father had told him, when teaching him chess, "If you can't predict your opponent's move, force him to react." This instruction, rather than sequences from survival films, was what sprung to mind. Perhaps the rules weren't all that different, even if this wasn't a chess battle.

He grabbed a smooth stone the size of a palm from the ground and threw it far upstream, away from his intended course. A patch of falling leaves clattered loudly against the stone. His hypothesis was validated by the machine's response. Its crimson lens, with that characteristic mechanical whir, briefly turned from Nicolas to the source of the sound as it approached the stream's edge. It was just for a moment. For Nicolas, however, the moment was a triumph. His mental file gained a second entry: 2. Its targeting mechanism is rudimentary. It highlights the movement or sound that is the most abrupt and noticeable. It can have its focus changed.

A thin vine of reason grew in the center of his terror, and these two facts made up the brittle basis of a plan. He was now directing the machine rather than merely running. He drove it purposefully toward narrow passageways and dense tree forests, gaining himself precious seconds by diverting it with small thrown stones or loud noises. The chase had changed into a perilous dance, akin to a young matador confronting a charging, enraged bull.

At last, he noticed it when he emerged into a clearing where the trees became thinner. A thundering river churned at the foot of a steep valley that sliced through the countryside. An ancient suspension bridge stretched across the chasm, shaking like a skeletal corpse in the wind. It was a monument to misery as well as a ray of optimism. The machine appeared behind him from the edge of the jungle. Nicolas had nowhere left to hide in the wide area as its crimson lens locked on to him. There was nothing else he could do.

On the bridge, he flung himself. Like the final gasp of a dying patient, the rotted planks beneath his feet moaned. He faced his pursuer as he arrived at the center. Without hesitation, the machine followed. With the sound of a piercing snap of splintering wood and a deafening shriek, the entire structure rebelled as its enormous weight fell upon the bridge.

Stumbling on the shaky surface, the machine sprang for the attack. Nicolas threw himself aside, trusting the clumsiness he now knew to expect as well as the flash of premonition in his head. In an act of pure luck, the scythe blade missed him and collided with one of the thick, moss-covered main support ropes beside him. Like the crack of a whip, the sound of the wire snapping reverberated throughout the gulf.

The bridge tilted violently, losing support on the left side. Nicolas bit back a scream and clutched to the railing. Meanwhile, with a discordant clang of metal, the machine fell to its knees. Everything became clear to Nicolas in that instant, amid the confusion and the bridge's lurch: the machine's weight, its awkwardness, its poor targeting, and now this mishap. An accident wasn't necessary. It might be a result.

He started running toward the other side of the bridge, stumbling on shaky legs. He had never run so long in his life. The bridge drooped more with each step, the thunder of the water below getting closer and louder. When he got to the last main support rope, he halted. This was his final opportunity.

Nicolas took his last chance as the damaged and angry machine pulled itself up for one last charge. Reaching into his pocket, he dropped a small stone near the rope, over the edge of the bridge.

His strategy was successful. The red lens of the machine stared at the falling stone's brief movement. A moment. Only one brief moment of distraction. Its attack trajectory had changed by several important millimeters by the time it regained Nicolas as its target. The machine's arm did exactly what Nicolas had hoped it would do, missing its target as he threw himself aside one last time. It cut straight through the last of the support rope.

Silence fell first. When the bridge lost its last anchor to the cliffside, it let forth its last, deadly groan. The mechanical beast was pulled along as wood, metal, and broken ropes tumbled into the swirling chasm below. The machine sounded like a metallic, enraged cry as it plummeted, as though it realized the final trick. Then everything became silent with a huge crash.

Nicolas was lying at the cliff's brink, face down. His limbs trembled, his ears rang, and his mind was filled with a huge, empty void. He had succeeded. Fear and desperation, rationality and luck, had all worked together to keep him alive. He raised himself gently. His voice was buried in the wind as he murmured, "Hector?"

At that moment, a well-known figure appeared in the trees behind him. Hector was the one. Nicolas experienced the same sense of relaxation that a tired soldier does when they get to a secure bunker following a protracted battle. "Hector! The bridge... I did it... my God, I did it."

He was never able to complete the phrase.

His whole world went dark with the forceful, crisp, and decisive blow to the back of his neck. The stars burst behind his eyes. The face of the man who had hit him was the final hazy image his waning consciousness recognized as he collapsed to the ground.

Hector's face was it. It was apathetic. It was chilly. And as a single, enormous question of why began to emerge in the back of Nicolas's mind, he was unable to find an answer before he fully gave himself up to the encroaching darkness.